Conventionally, electric rotary tools such as a rotary impact tool and a drill tool are provided therein with a speed reducer mechanism capable of changing output rotation speed in three or more stages.
As a changeover unit for changing over the rotation speed of the speed reducer mechanism, there is known a changeover operation device as disclosed in, e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2008-114365. This changeover operation device includes a single slide switch (equivalent to operation handles employed in the present invention) that can be slid into three shift positions, thereby shifting two shiftable gears and changing over three speed modes.
In the changeover operation device of Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2008-114365, the two shiftable gears are shifted by sliding the single slide switch. For this reason, one of the three shift positions necessarily becomes an intermediate position from which the slide switch can be slid toward the remaining two shift positions.
Therefore, the slide switch may be slid excessively or insufficiently. This makes it difficult to keep the slide switch in the intermediate position, thus impairing the ease of use.